True North Initiative News Scan 02 19 2018

TOP STORIES

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and family lark about on 'Diana's' Taj Mahal bench after he is 'snubbed' by Indian leader Modi

Trudeau, his wife Sophie Gregoire and their three children posed for a family portrait before marvelling at the legendary marble monument frequently visited by foreign leaders. It came after an apparent 'snub' at the start of his trip when the country's PM Narendra Modi failed to meet them at the airport and instead sent a junior agriculture minister. (Daily Mail)

Justin Trudeau in India: Is the Canadian PM being cold-shouldered?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's first official visit to India has not been the headline-grabbing love fest he must be accustomed to on his overseas trips. Despite plenty of photo opportunities, including at the Taj Mahal, Mr Trudeau and his family's tour has been largely ignored by senior members of the Indian government so far. When he arrived in the capital, Delhi, he was met at the airport by a junior minister in what many interpreted to be a "snub". (BBC) (Economic Times)

Trudeau, Sajjan ask to meet with Indian politician who criticized Canadian government

During his trip to India, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has asked the Canadian High Commissioner to request a meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Singh has been critical of the Canadian government in the past – accusing several ministers, and Sajjan in particular, of being Khalistani sympathizers. Last year, when Sajjan came to India, he wanted to talk to Singh about the issue but Singh refused to meet with him. (Global)

Canada deports North Korean asylum seekers

Despite its reputation as a haven for refugees, Canada has been deporting North Korean asylum seekers who came to the country through South Korea. Nearly 2,000 have been kicked out of the country since 2013 because the government says they lied on their asylum application forms. Another 150 Koreans are under imminent threat of deportation. Eleven years ago, Taegun Kim came to Canada with his wife, daughter and son. Now they have two more children, both Canadian citizens. A deportation would be catastrophic for the family. (Al Jazeera)

Patrick Brown accuser won award from CTV

One of Patrick Brown’s accusers received an award from CTV, the media company that first reported the allegations against the former Ontario PC leader, the Toronto Sun has learned. The woman, who CTV News chose not to name in their story, received a CTV Broadcast Journalism Award sometime during her time at university, She subsequently went on to work at a newspaper at the same time as Rachel Aiello, one of the two reporters who wrote the original story on Brown that alleged Brown plied the young women with alcohol and, in the case of the accuser who won the CTV award, kissed her without permission and effectively “sexually assaulted” her. (Toronto Sun)

MPP Patrick Brown revved up his effort to win the PC leadership Sunday, making his first public campaign stop at a Mississauga hotel conference room which was packed with about 200 grassroots supporters. Sharing the stage with about a dozen Conservative candidates and MPPs, the 39-year-old politician renewed his vow to “finish the job” he started. (Toronto Sun)

Chinese-Canadians demand apology from Trudeau

Hundreds of Asian-Canadian protesters, supported by several white, far-right, anti-immigrant groups stormed Parliament Hill on Sunday afternoon to demand an apology from the prime minister. According to plans for the protest on voteforright.com, members of the Asian-Canadian community feel victimized by a Toronto girl’s false claim in January that an Asian man cut off her hijab and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apparent rush to view the fictitious incident as a hate crime. (Toronto Sun) (CBC)

Iranian Regime Using Cyber Warfare Against Civilians to Preserve Theocracy

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has reportedly engaged in a series of coordinated cyber warfare tactics to spy on, police, and arrest the Iranian people to secure its theocracy. On Thursday, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) released a report titled, “Iran: Cyber Repression; How the IRGC Uses Cyberwarfare to Preserve the Theocracy.” The report details how the IRGC’s Ministry of Intelligence allegedly creates apps that are downloaded by or unwittingly installed onto Iranians phones and then used as tools to spy on them. (Breitbart)

A man in Russia‘s southern province of Dagestan shot into a crowd leaving a church on Sunday, killing five people and injuring at least five others, Russian news agencies reported, citing the local health ministry. The attack occurred in the village of Kizlyar in the Muslim-majority republic of Dagestan, agencies said. (Global) (Daily Mail) (Daily Star)

OTHER STORIES (Domestic and International)

'What happened to me shouldn't happen in Canada': Brown

Patrick Brown says he believes there’s wide acceptance across Ontario that sexual misconduct allegations against him were “absolute fabricated lies.” Brown stepped aside as PC party leader in late January after CTV News aired a story suggesting he had plied young women with booze and tried to pressure them into sex. (Toronto Sun)

Canada has lost $117B due to pipeline woes

Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to the United States, wants to bring another card to the pipeline debating table: the country’s economic self-interest. “As a Canadian, I feel passionate about this,” McKenna, who also served as premier of New Brunswick for a decade, said in an interview. “This dissipation of resources, this waste of a great national resource — and this vaporization of so much Canadian wealth — is offensive to me.” (Edmonton Journal)

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh says the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia are each fulfilling their promises to constituents on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, in spite of the fact that they now find themselves in direct conflict. “Premier (Rachel) Notley is doing exactly what she promised she would do for the people of Alberta: defend the economy. Premier (John) Horgan is doing what he promised to do for B.C.: defend the environment and the coastline,” Singh told host Eric Sorensen during this weekend’s edition of The West Block. (Global)

The woman who sits in the most powerful office in Ottawa is grappling with the #MeToo movement’s arrival on Parliament Hill. From parliamentary page to the prime minister’s chief of staff, Katie Telford has seen first-hand the multiple levels of Parliament Hill’s power structure. Now, she’s reflecting on the issue of harassment on the Hill from two different perspectives: as a former young staffer who navigated her way through the parliamentary precinct, and as a manager trying to support staff coming to her with their concerns. (Toronto Star)

Canada urged to take more action after sanctioning Myanmar general for Rohingya abuses

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Major-General Maung Maung Soe was sanctioned for his "significant role" in the violence and persecution that has forced nearly 690,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee Myanmar over the past six months. The general is the 53rd person – and the first from Myanmar – to be targeted by Canada's Magnitsky law, which allows the government to impose asset freezes and travel bans on human-rights abusers around the world. (Globe and Mail)

Canada is opposed to Israel's plan to deport or imprison thousands of African asylum seekers and has officially registered its concerns. A majority of the 37,000 citizens of Sudan and Eritrea living in Israel are being ordered out of the country beginning next month. The Israel government has started distributing notices advising asylum seekers they have 60 days to leave for a "safe" African country with the help of a plane ticket and a few thousand dollars. (CBC)

Israel Threatens Escalation Against Iran

Israeli Minister of National Infrastructures and Political-Security Cabinet member Yoav Galant said on Friday that Israel will "take off the gloves" in its next confrontation with Iran. Israeli warplanes attacked several Iranian targets in Syria last week after Iran sent a drone over Israeli territory. Galant said that it is Israel's intention to "dismantle the axis of evil -- Syria, Iran, and Hezballah." (PJ Media)

Theresa May warns Brexit bashers are helping ISIS as she slams hardliners who want to block security deal

THERESA MAY today took aim at European hardliners who want to stop Britain getting a good Brexit deal - warning they risk helping ISIS. The PM called on Europe to stand together against jihadists who "don’t care if they maim Parisians, Berliners, Londoners or Mancunians". (Sun.co.uk)

The Daring Plan to Save a Religious Minority from ISIS

Growing up in northwestern Iraq, Hadi Pir often went to Mt. Sinjar for solace. As a Yazidi, a member of an ancient religious minority, he believed that the narrow mountain was sacred, central to the Yazidi creation myth. Aside from the mountain, the region where the country’s six hundred thousand Yazidis live, also called Sinjar, is flat and desert-like. To Yazidis, it seems clear that God created the mountain because He knew that they would need a place to hide. (New Yorker)

EDITORIAL AND OPINION PIECES

Candice Malcolm: If Trudeau's going to crack down on 'fake news', he needs to define the term

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants social media companies to crack down on what he considers “fake news.” According to a recent media report, Trudeau met with top executives at Facebook and told them to fix their algorithms to prevent the spread of so-called fake news. He didn’t simply ask Facebook to investigate the supposed problem, he threatened action – including stricter regulations from Ottawa – if the social media giant failed to comply with his demands. (Toronto Sun)

Since the now infamous ‘Peoplegate’ controversy, an almost endless stream of videos, memes and gags at the expense of Prime Minister Trudeau has been circulating online. While many of the usual suspects in Canadian politics have been in on the joke, this one was different because of the amount of American and International comment it attracted. From InfoWars’ Paul Joseph Watson to the U.K.’s Piers Morgan, it seemed like Canada, and our leader, was the centre of attention, and not in a good way. (Toronto Sun)

Mark Bonokoski: Trudeau played the Boushie tragedy for political points

Justin Trudeau, now off in India, was speaking to the truth when he said our Indigenous people are over-represented in the judicial system, but it is not because our juries have them under-represented. This sudden and unprecedented political intrusion into the jury box was just another way for Trudeau and his senior cabinet to get into the headlines, and using the recent jury acquittal of Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley in the killing of a young Cree man is just another example of our PM’s lust for attention. Now, in response, Trudeau has decided to create a hellhole of political correctness called the Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework to deal with Indigenous issues. (Toronto Sun)